After 20 NFL weeks, it has come down to a family affair in Super Bowl XLVII, a first-time event that could also signal the beginning of the end for the salary cap era's most successful dynasty.

Yes, John and Jim Harbaugh will now take sibling rivalries to the next level. Coach Jim Harbaugh's San Francisco 49ers pounded their way into the NFL's title game with a bruising, 28-24 victory over the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC championship game and Coach John Harbaugh's Baltimore Ravens upset both the Broncos and Patriots — 28-13 on Sunday — on the road to earn their way into the league's title game.

It is the sixth trip to the Super Bowl in 49ers history, while the Ravens will make their second.

Here's an early look at the matchup on the field:

A quarterback test. No Peyton Manning, no Tom Brady, no Aaron Rodgers, no quarterback with a Super Bowl ring already on his finger.

The 49ers' Colin Kaepernick, with all of nine career starts, postseason included, will face the Ravens' Joe Flacco with the title on the line. It will be each up-and-comer's first trip to the title game.

Kaepernick has three passing touchdowns and two rushing TDs, and has thrown just one interception in his two postseason wins. Flacco is now the league's road king in the postseason, having earned his sixth career playoff win on the road Sunday in Foxborough, Mass.

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In three playoff wins this season, Flacco has outdueled rookie Andrew Luck, Manning and Brady. Flacco threw eight touchdown passes without an interception in the three playoff victories and keeps rising to meet the biggest moments.

And in the end, history may say it was Flacco, on a wind-swept January day in New England, who ended a run of five Super Bowl trips in an 11-season span for the aging Patriots.

"They were just better than we were," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said after the game.

San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh, left, in Atlanta, and Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh in Foxborough, Mass., during their NFL football conference championship games on Sunday. (Associated Press photos)

Now vs. later. The 49ers are upstarts, built largely by a team administration that is no longer there, including former coach Mike Nolan. But Jim Harbaugh has forged them into winners behind a bruising offense that now features the whip-armed Kaepernick behind center.

The 49ers reached their first Super Bowl since a glory-filled run when San Francisco won five titles in five appearances from the 1981 through the 1994 seasons behind two Hall of Fame quarterbacks: Joe Montana and Steve Young. Sunday, San Francisco posted the largest comeback in NFC championship game history, coming back from a 17-0 deficit in the first half for their 28-24 victory over the Falcons.

They are a team built to move forward from this point, with Jim Harbaugh in just his second season.

The Ravens have been a different team since linebacker Ray Lewis stood up in a team meeting and announced this was his "last ride." Lewis is in his 17th season, safety Ed Reed his 11th, center Matt Birk his 15th, wide receiver Anquan Boldin his 10th and outside linebacker Terrell Suggs his 10th.

It is Lewis' last ride, but it may well be this group's last title journey as well.

Stats vs. intangibles. Many of the numbers will add up to a 49ers championship. They have the league's No. 4 rushing attack and the No. 2 scoring defense, and they had nine players selected for the Pro Bowl.

Kaepernick is the new-age quarterback, a read-option runner who can throw with power and accuracy.

But the Ravens are a poster team for what so many of those who make their living in football believe in with all of their souls — that emotion, the belief in the group, can still tip the scales.

There's something at work. The Ravens' aging defense has played 87, 87 and 82 plays in the team's three playoff wins, an astounding total that usually spells doom for any defense that attempts it in back-to-back-to-back games.

But the Ravens played with more energy than the far younger Colts in the wild-card round, played with more energy than the Broncos in a double-overtime game and played with more energy than the Patriots on Sunday.

In the end it meant the Patriots, who were 67-0 in Brady's tenure at quarterback when leading a home game at halftime, are now 67-1, and will watch the Harbaugh brothers in the Super Bowl.

8-4: John Harbaugh's record in the postseason as the Ravens' coach. Sunday was Baltimore's third trip to the AFC championship game in Harbaugh's five-season tenure.

7: Regular-season starts for 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who led his team into the Super Bowl with Sunday's win. It's the third-lowest total for a QB in a season in which he went on to start a Super Bowl. The Giants' Jeff Hostetler had four starts in 1990 and the Rams' Vince Ferragamo had five in 1979.

Super Bowl XLVII

Site: New Orleans, La., Mercedes-Benz Superdome

Kickoff: Feb. 3, 4:30 p.m.

Baltimore wins if: It can maintain the kind of defensive momentum that has carried it through January. The Ravens have slowed the two highest-scoring offenses in the NFL in the regular season — the Patriots and the Broncos — and they consistently forced those two high-powered teams to play far more conservatively than they did in the regular season. So much so, Patriots coach Bill Belichick punted from Baltimore's 35- and 34-yard lines in Sunday's game.

San Francisco wins if: Second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick can keep his wits about him when people will be coming at him from all angles to tell his story. Kaepernick made Jim Harbaugh look like a member of the football Mensa club after the 49ers' coach made the controversial switch at quarterback. Kaepernick didn't have the same kind of historic day against the Falcons that he had against the Packers a week earlier, but he did not have a turnover at the Georgia Dome and put together three touchdown drives of at least 76 yards in the win.

Lockheed says object part of 'sensor technology' testing that ended ThursdayWhat the heck is that thing? It's fair to assume that question was on the minds of many people who traveled along Colo. 128 south of Boulder this week if they happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, silver projectile perched alongside the highway and pointed north toward town.

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